Experiential Learning Works!

It has proven over time that you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it. There have been great leaders and teachers who have mentored their students to become better through initiative and hard work. We are now in the 21st century and many professionals and entrepreneurs are quickly realizing that they can quickly adapt and expand their vision and ideas to achieve their goals.

Recently at a Klemmer & Associates Champion’s Workshop in Toronto led by Randy Bixby, we did just that. This was done in an environment where everyone felt engaged, and safe to step out at any time.

A great exercise went as follows: Participants were asked to come to the front of the room and traverse across the room however they wanted, the only catch was that the performance could not be repeated. This may sound like a simple exercise, but in reality it is mentally challenging to be original.

It requires two things:

1. To be observant of all the participants.

2. To create something that is original and be comfortable in looking silly for a few moment of your life!

The participants proceeded to cross the room crawling, skipping, jumping, twisting, or even waving like the Queen of England. It was interesting watching them become the part and living the moment!

As we go through our journey we will face challenges to complete a task, evaluate the opportunities within the experience, understand how we faced the challenge, and strengthen our resolve to improve and succeed.

In a second exercise, the audience was charged with: “whoever is passionate about achieving their 90 day goal, come to the front of the room”. From the front row leapt Patrick Bizindavyi. Everyone was amazed at how fast he sprang from his chair!

The exercise was explained: Patrick was to walk across the stage to the other side where an audience member was standing, and then return to his original spot.

The exercise began and Patrick walked across the stage, reached the audience member, turned around and was just starting to walk back when Randy Bixby got in front and put out his hand, and Patrick stopped walking. Randy talked about how life puts obstacles in the way and how we don’t put forth the effort to work through them. Family situations come up, life happens, business changes and we just don’t have the desire to continue.

He stood in the path of Patrick but never impeded his flow in any way. As he shared stories about business, life and success, we saw Patrick’s face change. He realized what he had done and continued to walk past Randy and go back to his original starting point. We stood up and gave him a standing ovation.

We had just seen experiential learning with our own eyes, but we still didn’t fully understand the impact it would have on our lives.

There is a famous quote from Star Wars – “Do. There is no try.” – Yoda.

We have to be in constant momentum in our daily lives. Success is waiting for us; we have to make the progress to reach out and grasp it.

The powerful exercises above show us how we play the game of life. If we want to succeed, there has to be a purpose and passion to succeed, to learn from our experience, to fuel the desire to accomplish our dreams today and to not wait for tomorrow.